


this journey of ours

by otayuriistheliteralbest



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Musicals, otayuri - Freeform, the musical not the book, tuck everlasting - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21670552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otayuriistheliteralbest/pseuds/otayuriistheliteralbest
Summary: Here’s the thing Yuri loved about acting: it was a complete escape from reality for him. Onstage, he could be anyone he wanted to be, and the stage was set, unchanging. He lost himself in those moments. He wasn’t the irritable, tiny twenty-two-year-old who pushed people away rather than let them get close to him. He could be a circus performer, or Puck, or even, yes, peppy little Winnie Foster, who was so full of life and wanted to explore outside the walls of her home and was excited about the world.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25
Collections: Bright Lights: A YOI Musical Zine





	this journey of ours

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my favorite musical of all time, Tuck Everlasting, which I had the good fortune to see on its third night of previews on Broadway. It was absolute, divine perfection, and my biggest heartbreak that it was canceled so soon. Look it up on YouTube to see the pure beauty of the staging and songs. <3
> 
> Thank you to all of my amazing beta readers, Harky and voxane and others I've probably forgotten, for tearing this apart and helping me bring it back together to become what you see before you. Enjoy!

Yuri scanned over the final cast list and cursed loudly. Wouldn’t it be just his luck to be cast alongside that idiot? He snorted, all too happy to know that JJ would be playing the comic relief for most of the show. Yuri wouldn’t have to act alongside him very much, either, from what he remembered of the script. He looked through the list again, tapping a finger on the name of his love interest. _Otabek Altin_ ….now why did that seem familiar? Yuri knew most of the professional actors who worked in the city, and a name like Otabek Altin is uncommon enough that he should remember meeting him.

Yuri hummed. He’d meet the guy at the first read-through, no use trying to recall it now. He snapped a photo of the list with his phone to peruse along with the script that weighed heavy in his satchel.

A muffled thump and a string of curses came from the direction of the costume shop. Yuri poked his head around the open door to find that one of the costume racks had collapsed to one side, burying the theatre’s costume manager, Christophe Giacometti, under the weight of velvet and broadcloth.

“Need any help there, Chris?” Yuri teased from the doorway.

“Je te tue— _ouais,_ of course I need help, you little—”

Another string of curses in progressively thicker French emitted from the wriggling fabric.

“It seems like I’m not needed after all; all I’m hearing is a lot of wind, and I don’t help sentient fabric.”

“Je—fine, fine. Yuri, will you be so kind as to free me from this demon costume rack?”

Yuri snorted and tossed his bag against the wall by the door. He stepped up to the pile of fabric and whistled when he finally got a solid look at the rack.

“I’m impressed, Chris; only _you_ could get the heaviest rack to fall on you. At least it isn’t broken, from what I can see. Get ready to push up on my count, okay?”

Yuri crouched and heard a muffled noise of acquiescence. He gripped the wood of one side solidly with both hands and braced himself on one of the monstrosity’s feet that was supposed to stop this kind of thing from happening in the first place.

“Okay, on three. One, two, three!”

He pressed with his foot and tugged upward. That combined with Chris’ assistance righted the offending clothing rack, revealing a ruffled Christophe, his large, gold-rimmed glasses knocked askew on a _very_ red face.

“Merci, Yuri.” Chris enveloped Yuri in an unexpected hug that left him squeaking in protest. Yuri escaped the second Chris let go of him, the sound of Chris’ laughter echoing behind him as he scuttled out the door.

* * *

_At the top, at the top, at the top of the world you're drawing back a curtain._

* * *

Otabek took a deep breath and opened the door to the rehearsal room. It had been a long, hard road back to the city after his old dance coach told him he’d never be good enough to get a leading role, or even be in the chorus. Maybe he’d invite the old hardass to opening night.

He was early to the read-through, with only one other person there. He gasped. Light poured through the tall windows and caught in the other man’s hair, making him shimmer like gold. The noise had caught the man’s attention, and he looked up from his perusal of the script in his hands to lock eyes with Otabek. He snatched his sunglasses off and hooked them into his v-neck. 

He was caught in his eyes. Otabek remembered those eyes from his dance classes so long ago. _The eyes of a soldier_. Yuri Plisetsky, the famed child prodigy who beat the odds as he grew into a powerhouse of an adult actor. Otabek had been following his work ever since they were teenagers, but hadn’t gotten the chance to see him perform live in a show in years.

“Hey, there. I’m Otabek.”

He held out a hand awkwardly to Yuri, who remained sitting and pierced his soul with those stormy green eyes.

“Yuri,” he said finally, holding his hand out to grip Otabek’s firmly. “Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, then. I’m playing Winnie.”

Otabek lit up, his eyes crinkling with a smile. Yuri clearly didn’t remember him, but that didn’t matter to Otabek. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Yuri. Is it okay if I sit by you?”

Yuri gestured to the folding chair next to him.

“Suit yourself.”

Otabek sat and opened his own script. Their tableau was broken as the door swung open once more, spewing forth a large body of actors into the room. Otabek heard Yuri swear under his breath.

“Ugh, really, JJ? Only assholes wear sunglasses on their heads.”

Otabek glanced up and snorted. The guy had a similar haircut to himself and was gesturing wildly to the others as they walked into the room, paying no attention at all to where he was going. He almost tripped on a strikingly beautiful man with silver hair and it hardly broke the flow of his one-sided conversation. Otabek was just glad he hadn’t perched his sunglasses on his head when he’d taken them off before.

It wasn’t long before everyone was there, and they sat in a loose circle to introduce themselves and get started. The director, Celestino, was greeted with cries of, “Ciao Ciao!” and slaps on the back. He was a tall, bulky man with flowing brown hair tied back in a horsetail. He stood behind the last empty chair and clapped his hands together, calling everyone’s attention to him.

“Ciao Ciao, everyone! I’m very excited to be putting on this all-male production of Tuck Everlasting with you all. For this rehearsal, we will be reading straight through the script to get a feel for your characters. If you want to sing your solos, go for it, but it isn’t required. I will read all of the stage directions aloud to help get a visual, and read through or skip over the more complex numbers.”

As everyone settled in with their scripts, Otabek very quickly realized that the reports of Yuri’s skills were all true; it was one thing to read about it on the top websites, another entirely to witness it in person. The moment they began the read-through, Yuri had snapped his script closed and set it in his satchel on the floor by his feet. While Otabek and the others spoke or sang their songs to varying degrees, Yuri sang in perfect pitch with no accompaniment. Yuri had turned from a surly young man into bright, young Winnie Foster, wanting nothing more than to explore and break free of her restrictive life at home with her mother and grandmother and go to the fair that has come to town.

Otabek hid a smile at JJ’s bumbling Hugo; hard to do when Yuri did nothing to hide his own amusement. They took a break at the end of reading Act One for coffee and a brief repose before finishing the read-through.The moment Celestino declared the rehearsal over, Yuri bolted from his seat and was out the door before Otabek had the chance to even utter a word to him. JJ sauntered over and clapped a hand on Otabek’s shoulder.

“Don’t feel bad, Altin. Our fiery kitten is a quadruple threat: acting, singing, dancing, and evasion. You’ll see him at rehearsals, but don’t expect to become best buds just because you’re acting with him onstage. I learned that the hard way _years_ ago.”

“R-right. Thanks, Leroy.”

JJ grinned, flashing his bright pearly whites at Otabek in a way that grated on his nerves.

“A group of us are going for drinks, wanna join? The pub across the street is our regular haunt, and we always go there for a post-read through hangout.”

Otabek was tired, but it would be good to get to know his fellow actors since he seemed to be the only newbie in the cast.

“Sure, sounds fun.”

* * *

_You need a partner in crime. Someone to share in a laugh!_

* * *

The next few months took on a pattern of sorts, and Yuri threw himself into rehearsals. Everywhere he turned, Otabek was there, and he found himself warming up to his costar. As the sets were built, they took their blocking from the rehearsal room to the stage. Yuri had always been impressed with Seung Gil’s set designs (not that he would ever tell him that) but he had really outdone himself with this one. 

For Yuri and Otabek’s “Top of the World,” they would be climbing up a “tree” formed by the unused box seats to the stage left side of the stage. This led to a powered catwalk that looked like an artistically-rendered giant tree branch that slowly descended as they sang so that by the time the song ended and the other Tuck family members appeared, Winnie and Jesse were solidly back on the stage floor once more.

Here’s the thing Yuri loved about acting: it was a complete escape from reality for him. Onstage, he could be anyone he wanted to be, and the stage was set, unchanging. He lost himself in those moments. He wasn’t the irritable, tiny twenty-two-year-old who pushed people away rather than let them get close to him. He could be a circus performer, or Puck, or even, yes, peppy little Winnie Foster, who was so full of life and wanted to explore outside the walls of her home and was excited about the world. Yuri could simply strip away his crabby personality and place it in a box in his mind and take out Winnie and _be_ her. It was invigorating, like his own personal superpower.

Yuri basically had his routine down pat at this point and could act in his sleep, so when his costar, Otabek, was there at every break, every moment trying to _talk_ to him, it threw Yuri. At first, he’d opted to ignore Otabek, but when that didn’t work, he listened to him. Otabek went deep into his character study, analyzing Jesse’s motives for leaving his family to explore the world alone, never putting down roots or making any friends. Hell, he even read the _book_. Yuri never read the source material, thinking it might color his perception of the character and negatively affect his acting.

The change was gradual, the gravitation of two like-minded people who evolved into something more. Yuri began to actively seek out Otabek’s company, rather than the other way around, and hung about after rehearsal instead of bolting for the door the second that he was free. 

It wasn’t until they were practicing the last two scenes of Act One in full, costumes, set change and all, that Yuri realized that he wanted something more with Otabek, an intangible need that set his skin on fire when blocking had them grasp hands and run from the Man in the Yellow Suit. They had made it to the top of the silo and were about to start the next number when Celestino cried out, “Hold!” from the audience.

“Otabek, Yuri, please stay right there for a moment. There was a mechanical error when the silo rose from the stage, and I don’t want you to get injured.”

Otabek gave a thumbs-up to Celestino and they relaxed while Seung Gil and his crew went over what went wrong on the stage below them. Yuri leaned over to rest his head on Otabek’s shoulder, exhaustion etching every line of his body. Otabek instinctively wrapped an arm around Yuri’s shoulders to support him.

“Three more weeks,” Yuri murmured. “You ready for opening night?”

“More than anything. I’ve worked so hard to get back here.”

Yuri hummed noncommittally and then, curious, perked up. He turned his gaze on Otabek.

“What do you mean?”

Otabek scratched his undercut, grimacing.

“I’ve trained wherever I could, performed in professional productions in cities in Ohio, Arizona, in Chicago, and the like, but all of it was so that I could come back to the city and perform onstage here. It’s been my dream, and I’ve had to fight for it every step of the way. It’s a validation of everything I’ve been fighting for since I was a teenager.”

Yuri’s mind whirred; he’d never had to struggle like Otabek had, and if he were being honest to himself, it made him more than a little uncomfortable to think about. 

Thoughts still tumbling over top of each other, Yuri settled back down on Otabek’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you made it, then. No one understands Jesse the way you do.”

Had Yuri looked up in that moment, he would have seen a look of shock mixed with longing cross Otabek’s face, before he hurriedly schooled his expression. Instead, he was distracted by Celestino calling up to resume rehearsal from the top of the carnival scene.

They trod down the spiral stairs, and at the last step, Otabek held his hand out to Yuri, a broad grin splitting his face.

Yuri’s heart fluttered and he didn’t know what to do, but take the proffered hand. 

* * *

_Winnie, wait with me / and we’ll share the world … and live like this / Forever!_

* * *

“All I’m saying is, our little kitten is being summarily tamed by Otabek.”

“Yeah, but can you really say that he’s being ‘tamed’? They’re friends!”

“I think they’re cute together.”

Phichit swiped his makeup brush one last time across Yuuri’s face, spinning him around to look at himself in the mirror. Old age makeup was a challenge that Phichit loved to tackle, and no one could quite get the lines right on Yuuri like Phichit could do.

JJ lounged on the couch behind them in the dressing room, posing dramatically. “You can’t see it? Yurio is all doe-eyed, following Altin around like a lost kitten! It’s like he’s a completely different person now.”

Yuuri raised a brow, watching JJ from the reflection in the mirror.

“I think it’s sweet. They seem to _get_ one another. I’m happy for them, if that’s the case. Yura is the happiest I’ve seen him since his mom passed away.”

JJ perked up. “His mom? When did _that_ happen? I had no idea.”

Yuuri waved his hand vaguely in the air. “It was probably a year or two before you joined our little troupe. He was….what, sixteen?” Yuuri glanced up at Phichit for confirmation, and he nodded. “He has a grandpa, but no other family besides him, so Yura just went all-in on acting. He hasn’t really found the mental space to just be himself. Until now. I think he just needed to find someone who was on his wavelength.”

* * *

Yuri’s heart thudded in his chest. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but really, those three were such gossips, it was like nothing was off-limits. He was a weird mix of pale and flushed, thinking about what Yuuri had said. 

Had he...been pushing people away? He didn’t really give anyone a chance to know him, it was true. Yuuri and Viktor were different, they coerced him into practically being adopted by them even before his mom had died. They were his surrogate parents and took care of him when he forgot to do it himself.

Yuri went to the dressing room he shared with Otabek and Mickey, the actor who played Miles Tuck. He absentmindedly threw on his costume, the basic frock-inspired trousers and top that his Winnie wore for the majority of the show. He was just pulling the shirt on over his head when the door swung wide and Otabek entered, staring down at his blocking notes in his script. Yuri hurriedly pulled the shirt the rest of the way on and squeaked out a hello that was more air than noise.

Otabek shook himself from the trance he’d been in and a lazy smile spread across his face.

“Hey, Yuri. Ready for dress rehearsal?”

Yuri stuffed his shirt into open trousers and buttoned them up. He cleared his throat.

“Uhh, yeah, of course. Still going over the changes Ciao Ciao made yesterday?”

Otabek nodded. “I think I have it all down now. We’ll just have to see how I do in rehearsal now.”

Yuri pushed Otabek’s shoulder, more of a shove than anything else. “You’ll be _fine_. I promise! You just need to shake the nerves away.” 

He checked his phone for the time. 

“We have twenty minutes left, let’s climb up to the top of the tree, make sure we have all the footholds and timing down.”

Otabek set down his bag, already pulling off his t-shirt.

“I’ll change, then, just in case. Meet you out there?”

Yuri was distracted, practically drooling over Otabek’s washboard abs. He didn’t break from his trance until Otabek cleared his throat. Yuri glanced up, flushed with embarrassment.

“Yeah, I-I’ll meet you out there. See you in a bit.”

Yuri fled before Otabek could comment on his staring.

* * *

_You are an evil banana!_

* * *

Yuri looked out on the rows of seats in the audience, currently empty but in little more than an hour they would begin to fill up with opening night theatre-goers. His heart thudded in his chest, excitement pulling at his very core. There was nothing he loved more than the thrill of the theatre, putting on a good show for a different crowd every night.

He dropped down from his perch a few feet up on the tree, his new favorite spot, and began to shake out his arms, his legs, loosening his muscles and nerves all in one. Otabek materialized next to him, making him jump.

“Can I talk to you, Yura?” Otabek asked.

Yuri smiled, biting his cheek. “Yura, is it?”

Otabek scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

“Sorry, I overheard Yuuri calling you that and it stuck in my head. Do you mind?”

“Nah, you’re fine. So long as you don’t call me a ‘little kitten’ like fu—”

“ _Language_ , Yura.”

“—effing JJ.”

Otabek snorted. “ _Never_.”

“Good.”

“Good?” 

Otabek’s eyes seemed to search for something in Yuri’s face. He shifted nervously, sticking his hands in trouser pockets to give them something to do besides hang awkwardly at his sides.

“Yeah. Good.”

Otabek let out a breath that was a half laugh. “Any particular reason _why_ it’s good?”

Yuri gulped. _In for a penny…_ “Well...because I like you, Beka.”

A smirk.

“Beka, is it? That’s new.”

“Do you like it?”

“I do, Yura.”

“Do you… do you like _me_?”

Otabek stepped forward, raising a hand to brush back the hair that had fallen in front of Yuri’s face. There was that look in his eyes, the one that made Yuri want to plunge into the depths and never come up for air. Otabek cupped his cheek and leaned down, pressing Yuri’s lips with his in a soft, almost timid, kiss.

Yuri broke away, a shocked look in his eyes. Otabek looked uncertain, shifting nervously. Yuri nodded to himself, and before Otabek could apologize, pulled him back down into another, deeper, kiss.

“I was right! Pay up, Leo, I _told_ you they liked each other!”

Otabek and Yuri separated and turned to face the voice. Yuri rolled his eyes. JJ. Of course. He and Leo were off to the wings of the stage, where they clearly had been spying on Yuri and Otabek.

“Screw them,” Yuri said, looking up at Otabek. “We have fifteen minutes til places, want to go back to the dressing room for some privacy?”

Otabek gripped Yuri’s hand in his. “Let’s go.”

JJ called out to their backs, “Oy, you’ve got _ten_ til places!”

Yuri didn’t even look back, just gave JJ the middle finger.

“Thank you ten. And JJ? I can do more in ten than you can in a week."

Yuri laughed into Otabek’s shoulder as they left JJ sputtering in the wings. 


End file.
